Hopefully, by now, most of you know what a Podcast is. Believe it or not I was part of the Man Fights Back podcast a while back. We ended up recording 44 episodes before putting things on pause for a while. Hopefully we’ll get to a point where we can start recording again.

Publishing a podcast is a lot of work. Coming up with material, time to record, time to edit, time to produce and, most importantly, building your audience. Adam Curry and John C. Dvorak at the No Agenda Show podcast have figured all of this out and find time to publish 2 episodes a week totaling 5+ hours of content. They give the show away and only ask for donations to keep the show going. As of January 15, 2012 they’ve recorded 374 shows, along with a few special episodes.

Donations of $50 or more get their name or organization mentioned in the show. The top two donations for each episode get Executive Producer and Associate Executive Producer credits. It’s all turned out to be a pretty cool concept. Individuals who accumulate $1000 (or more) worth of donations (or donate it all at once) get a special “Knighthood” designation and customized ‘hit them in the mouth’ ring complete with old-fashioned envelope sealing wax that you can make an impression in with the ring.

The No Agenda Show is hard to describe but it covers a lot of current events and things you don’t hear about in the mainstream media. The discussions are lively and often times very humorous especially with all of the musical jingles and memes. The show notes are a treasure trove of links and media clips that allow you to dig deeper into the topics you find interesting. I’ve gotten a lot of ideas for the IndyScan.com blog posts from this podcast.

I’ve been planning on donating to the show for a while now but thought it might be kind of neat to pool together some donations from IndyScan.com readers and submit them on the behalf of IndyScan.com and its followers. The goal is to add a little more money to what I was going to donate ($100) and get some press for the blog.

Starting today I’m going to place a special donation button on the IndyScan.com site and will take contributions (via PayPal) until February 29, 2011. Every penny contributed will be added to my donation and submitted to the no Agenda Show for inclusion in one of the early March shows.

I hope you have a chance to check out the No Agenda Show and find it something you want to listen to and make a donations towards.

Every once in a while a great idea comes along that, once you hear it, is so obvious!

On Aug 31, 2011 a British man named Alwyn Collinson started a 6 year project that uses Twitter to send out messages from World War II. These messages are reports of the war as they happen on the same day and time over 70 years ago. The messages are brief and often have links to related historical images.

@RealTimeWWII has grown in popularity over the months and as of the time of this writing has 160,000 users following the action.

As you can imagine there’s a lot of information to be relayed and the timing of the messages are what makes this so unique. Mr. Collinson uses an online scheduling tool called SocialOomph to keep the entire project moving.

I first learned about this project from an article in the New York Times. They have a great writeup that also talks about other similar projects.

If you’re a WWII fan you should check this out. An RSS feed is also available but requires a Facebook account to access.

This is the third and final installment of my favorite Blogs and RSS reeds on the Internet. This is a small sample of the other sites I follow. Everything from comedy to crackpots to cigars. I hope you find something new in the list.

FAIL Blog – If you like seeing people paying the price for stupid actions this is the site for you. There’s usually some pretty good signage mistakes too.

The Oatmeal – I’m really not into modern-day cartoons and comics (Dilbert is lost on me & The Far Side no longer exists) but this guy hits my funny bone just about every time. Fair warning, these are usually not kid friendly or safe for work.

David Allen Company – In my opinion Getting Things Done (GTD) is the best life management system ever created. I started with the book, attended the seminar, and intently read every newsletter from the David Allen Company. This guy is a former hippie (for lack of a better term) turned entrepreneur and productivity demigod. If you are looking for an alternative to all of the other systems, give this one a try. It’s been truly life changing for me.

The Art of Manliness – From shaving to shoe shining to being a better man, this site has it all. Sometimes it’s a little “old fashioned” but the articles are well written and have a lot of good content. This concept would make a great magazine.

Cool Tools – Not as active as it once was but you can still learn about such things as the Bombproof laptop case and Dependable soldering irons.

No Agenda – This podcast stars former MTV VJ Adam Curry & and tech columnist John C. Dvorak. It covers mainstream and not so mainstream media. Always good for a laugh and exposure to a new conspiracy theory.

Daily dose of imagery – As a photo hobbyist I always enjoy seeing other peoples work. More often than not I get inspiration from these images.

Every Day Carry – I always called it “Being Prepared” but there’s a cult following to the Boy Scout motto. This site posts user submitted images of their EDC items. From watches to knives to guns, it’s all there. I’ve found a few neat tools on this site that I’ve added to my daily carry.

Cigar Aficionado – The website is a treasure trove of information to the cigar enthusiast. Just about all of their back issue articles are online and the review database is a great resource.

So there you go, some of the more non-traditional items that pique my interest. If you have read all three posts you can probably put together a more accurate picture if me and my lifestyle. There’s a few things you probably don’t know about too. Stick around and check the blog for future posts.

Small format change where we merged Indiana & National news. Looking for your feedback on the overall content and flow of the podcast. We’re doing this for FUN but we also want to make sure it’s ENJOYABLE for those of you listening to it!